GRRRRRRRR!!!!
What a fucking bunch of muppets!

It annoys me so much that the RIAA just blindly files suits against trading services like morpheus(for example), instead of using them to it's advantage.

such a way of dealing with things is narrowminded and pathetic.

</vent>

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Windows 95 -n- (win-doze): a 32 bit Extension to a 16 bit Graphical Shell of
an 8 bit Operating System originally coded for a 4 bit Processor by a 2 bit
company that can't stand one bit of competition!!

anyhoo, yeah they shouldn't just go around suing companies left and right. jeez. it's almost frivilous.

OF COURSE THE RIAA IS GOING TO BE PISSED OFF AT MORPHEUS, IT'S ATTACKING IT'S SOURCE OF INCOME!

Music-sharing in the main is illegal. We know this, we do it anyway.

"But it can be used for unsigned bands and rare live bootlegs"

Yes, that's true, and I've used it for both of those, but most of the time i'm downloading commercial music. Commercial music that the RIAA put money into producing.

I think that sharing should be legal, however if you do that where do the artists get money from?

</rant>

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-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...

we all know this, but it isn't so much that they're suing BECAUSE of illegal music sharing, it's more the THREAT of music sharing, which is what makes them total asses, maybe they'll go after ftp clients next. Or even browsers since, hey, you can distribute music through those mediums too.

Lets take a hypo (hypothetical)
A had a book. A bought the book when it first came out two days ago. A is a quick reader and immediately upon getting the book he reads and finishes it. Three days later A's best friend B comes by. B seeing the book asks A if he can read it. A, knowing that he bought the book decides that B can use the book and read it. Is this illegal?

Every court will say no. This is what is called a "fair use" doctrine. Basically it says that if you bought something and than loans or gives it to someone else it consitutes fair use. Didn't you ever wonder why your professors, teachers etc never got brought up on copyright infringement charges when they photocopied works of others?

Lets move this into a more recognizable domain. A owns a book. A having finshed the book goes to a swap meet. At the swap meet A trades the book for a really neat looking shirt. Is this illegal?

Again, the law would say that because A exchanged something which he believe to be equal in value it is not illegal. What does this have to do with RIAA?

I'll let you figure that out one for yourselves.

(HINT: Is Napster/Morpheus a swap meet in the same sense that A exchanged his book for the shirt?)

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L'absence est à l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent; Il éteint le petit, il allume le grand.
- Comte de Bussy- Rabutin

In other words, the first transaction doesn't diminish the author/publisher's potential revenue. The second transaction does potentially cut into the producer's revenue, assuming that B would be willing to pay > Ũ for the file if they couldn't get it from A.

Copyright is definitely a good thing for a society to have. Right now though we are in the middle of a huge arms race where both consumers and producers have been making huge grabs for more control (consumers with file-sharing, and producers with intensive copy-prevention systems). I hope we can eventually come to a fair compromise - perhaps mandatory content encryption, but with guaranteed limits to preserve fair use & the right to sell or loan, and to ensure that content becomes free after the copyright expires.

IMHO content companies are missing a HUGE revenue opportunity by not embracing on-line distribution... e.g. I've been trying to get the Enterprise premiere off the net because my local TV doesn't carry the channel. I'd have been willing to pay a good บ-ฤ for a downloadable version, but since there is no such offering, I had no choice but to download a rip from Gnutella.

quote:

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Originally posted by DRUFER:
Looks like they got their next target....

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Yep... swap meets!

Chrissy, books are different in the main from music. You're twisting the facts.

If I were to give my friend a digital copy of a new album I just bought, he wouldnt buy that album, even though he was interested in buying it. I've given everything about the music (ownership) to the other person while keeping the same thing for myself.

Books are different, because you rarely read them with the frequency of music, and 90\% of the time if I want a book I'll go buy it.

Reading off a screen is difficult.

I wouldn't feel motivated to go out and spend ฟ on a CD when I could fire up <file sharing program> and have it myself in an hour. Add 10 minutes to that and I have it on CD. Visit a site and I have the lyrics, the artwork ... it goes on.